


body like a backroad

by what_on_io



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Driving, Fluff, M/M, Road Trips, because who needs angst?, in that they are on a road, kind of, they're both very soft here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 19:52:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16204511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_on_io/pseuds/what_on_io
Summary: Nines can't drive. Gavin teaches him.





	body like a backroad

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that I'm a poor English girl who has only ever driven manual cars. I have also never been to Detroit (as you can probably guess from this fic lol).
> 
> Yes, the title comes from the Sam Hunt song. Yes, I'm a cringeball.
> 
> I currently have a longer Detroit fic in the works which I'm super excited about, but come bother me on tumblr (what-on-io). I take prompts!

Really, it shouldn’t have come as any sort of surprise to Gavin. Nines hadn’t been designed with integration in mind - he was a machine designed to complete a task, and that task was to render a human workforce redundant.   
  
Which meant he had to learn. How to smile without grimacing. How to make - inflict - small talk. How to interpret sarcasm and irony and flirting.  
  
How to drive, apparently.  
  
“My model was not designed to perform menial tasks,” Nines explains, looking just short of wringing his damn plastic hands together. “Self-driving cars are commonplace - should the need arise for me to travel, it was assumed I would commandeer one of those.”  
  
Gavin’s torn between protesting the _menial_ comment and letting his jaw fall lax from shock. In the end he settles on the half interested eyebrow raise he’s perfected around the android - not too invested, but not indifferent enough for him to clam up entirely. He knows exactly where Nines’ buttons are and how to push them. “That isn’t- Look, there’s nothing like gunning it down a highway with the windows down and your foot to the floor, alright?”  
  
Nines squints, like he’s trying to fathom something beyond Gavin’s reach. “You enjoy it.”  
  
“Hell, yeah. Driving always helped me unwind after a stressful day. Used to steal my parents’ old Prius and tear up the neighbourhood after everyone had gone to bed.” That’s… more than he meant to reveal, but a flicker of a smile is lifting the very corners of Nines’ mouth, and Gavin finds he doesn’t want to take it back. He’s never mentioned his adolescence around the android before.   
  
Around anyone, really.  
  
“Perhaps you could teach me.”  
  
Fuck. It’s a trap, obviously. Has to be. Another opportunity for Kamski’s programming to outperform him in new and exciting ways, only this time Gavin finally has something over Nines. Something that he actually kind of enjoys, and it’s going to be stripped away by a damn piece of plastic, who’ll probably laugh at his shoddy steering and his foot stuttering on the brake.  
  
Another thing destroyed, just like his job, and his attempts at a social life, and his fucking heart.  
  
“Fine,” he grunts.

* * *

“That one’s the brake, and the one on the right is the accelerator. This lever is for the turn signal, unless you’re an asshole, in which case you won’t need to worry about those. Parking brake, wipers, stereo,” Gavin explains, feeling ridiculous. Nines has access to trillions of online articles that could tell him exactly what every lever and button in the damn car does, all conveniently stored in his own head, yet Gavin’s currently smushed into the passenger seat of his own car, watching him flex his hands on the wheel. He’s angled himself in the seat so he’s facing the driver’s side, so he can see the android hover over each component, a phantom touch.

“Got it,” he says. His fingers are already itching to turn the keys in the ignition.  
  
“Nuh-uh,” Gavin hums. “You gotta take it out of park if you want to go anywhere, and put it in drive, see?” He reaches over without thinking and grabs Nines’ right hand, drawing it gently over to the gear shift and closing his fingers over the android’s. “The R puts it in reverse.”  
  
When he looks over, Nines’ eyes are closed, his LED blinking but still blue. Gavin withdraws his hand like it burned, clenches his fists tight in his lap, and grits out, “You probably already knew all that, though.”  
  
“I purposely did not download any external information, Detective. I wanted to enjoy the benefit of your knowledge firsthand,” Nines says calmly. “Lieutenant Anderson’s vehicle is a manual transmission.”  
  
“Yeah, ‘cause Anderson and his car are ancient. Nobody drives stick anymore. Hell, nobody _drives_ anymore, but you get my drift.” A sigh, one he can’t hold back. No more stalling. “Well, go ahead. You might as well try now.”  
  
He turns the keys fast enough that Gavin startles in his seat, fumbling to click the seatbelt into place before Nines can roar away. But he just eases the car into drive and nudges the gas pedal, taking them on a smooth tour of the precinct parking lot, each turn executed with mechanical precision. They can’t have gone above fifteen miles an hour.  
  
“Was that satisfactory, Detective Reed?” he asks once they come to a stop, putting the car back into park and applying the e-brake for good measure. He sends Gavin an earnest smile, hands on his knees.  
  
Gavin feels like he should have been making notes.  
  
“You passed,” he says anyway, to see the smile grow at the edge. “You reckon you can actually get us out of the parking lot this time?”   
  
“You… I assumed you wouldn’t trust me to handle your vehicle on the road.” Gavin doesn’t miss the hesitation in Nines’ voice, or the excitement laced underneath. Both make him smile. Fucker wants to drive his car? Fucking fine.  
  
“Knock yourself out,” he tells him. Nines barely waits for confirmation, just rams the car into drive and presses the gas, harder this time. Joins the traffic on the main road with no effort at all. Gavin watches it all with his mouth clamped firmly shut, refusing to let feelings like arousal factor into anything. Never mind how Nines has left his right hand loose on his thigh, close enough to brush against Gavin’s when he shifts in his seat.  
  
Nines doesn’t say where he’s going, and Gavin doesn’t ask, just lets his head rest against the window, vibrating slightly from the bumps in the road. Watches the city skyline blur into trees, tarmac blending into dirt, and then they’re pretty much alone on a secluded stretch of the interstate, somewhere outside of the city, and holy fuck, how long have they been driving?  
  
Long enough for the sun to get low in the sky, apparently, because Gavin suddenly has to squint to make much of anything out against the brightness. “Nines? Where are we?”  
  
“Somewhere along the I-94,” is the response he gets. “I… wanted to test a theory.”  
  
“What theory?” Gavin’s almost afraid to ask, in case all of this has been an elaborate ruse to get him into an isolated patch of woodland and finally rid the world of his assholery for good.   
  
“I think I find driving enjoyable,” Nines explains. The speedometer gradually rises past sixty. “It allows me to run subroutines that would otherwise have been overshadowed by other objectives.”  
  
“It takes you out of your head for a while, yeah?” Gavin pushes.   
  
“In essence, yes.” Sixty-five, now. “I am having… fun.” Seventy.  
  
“Told ya.” Because it’s nice to be right about something for once, and while Nines lets the car cruise at eighty-five - _we can say it was an emergency, Detective_ \- with the sun in his eyes and an android behind the wheel of his baby, Gavin Reed slips his left hand into Nines’ free one.

* * *

 

Later, when darkness has fallen and they’re pulled up on a scenic overlook somewhere probably still in Michigan, Gavin leans his head against Nines’ shoulder and wonders, “You really didn’t know how to drive?”  
  
“Well,” is the answer he gets.   
  
“Nines!”  
  
“I knew the theory,” he admits. “But the practice was very welcome. And I enjoy it when you touch me.”  
  
“You… you what?” Gavin can’t help himself. His hand still hasn’t left Nines’, where the synthetic skin has peeled back just an inch, enough to reveal the white plastic of his fingertips beneath.   
  
“I suspected you might engage in physical contact in order to show me how to operate the vehicle. And I like it when you touch me. I wish it happened more frequently.”  
  
“You could’ve just asked,” Gavin gripes without malice. “Didn’t have to drag me all the way out here like an axe murderer.”  
  
He can feel Nines’ laughter against his neck when the android turns to nuzzle in gently, unnecessary breaths just barely huffed against the skin there. “And miss seeing you scream when I pretended to lose my grip on the wheel?”  
  
“Oh, sure, _pretended_. Convenient, since that truck terrified the daylights outta you just a minute before, huh?”  
  
Nines kisses him, and Gavin’s glad they have a long drive home ahead. But for now, he winds his hands into the android’s hair and tugs him closer.


End file.
